This Gentlemen is a BUFFALO!

Did you sneak up on him or did you stop him on a deadly charge?  Yikes!

Big Woods Summit as Witnessed by the Chief

Mike "Sleeps with Bison" Bowhunter, VP of Culinary Affairs

The best ever, despite not having Yucca.  The omission of Yucca, the Official Cocktail of the Pro Staff, on Saturday before the Paella Feast will never happen again on my watch.  We did however enjoy that damn deadly apple drink that Sleeps with Bison prepares.  I mostly enjoyed the fellowship, especially with our military members.  We are very thankful for their continued service.  Thank you Midger for arriving after 6 PM on Friday so that I could win the 2 Fly Contest.  "Judgment Day" was read before our annual awards ceremony.  Award winners will be announced later.  The food this year was simply incredible.  The only thing Mike's Deluxe Burgers needed was your mouth.  If you went to bed hungry, it was your own damn fault.  Hell, Bunyan woke up hungry; stuffing himself with a chunk of Lasagna the size of a car battery covered with leftover American Fries for breakfast. I had to look away.  I pray that God pardons our gluttony.  Midger and I spent most of Saturday preparing the Paella Feast.  We insured that we were sufficiently libated with bourbon shots during the process.  Hours later, I experienced a port wine blackout shortly after instructing Midger to put the paella fire in simmer.  I must admit that the Paella was one of the best I have ever prepared over the fire.  The Pro Staff enjoyed fishing a Brown Drake Spinner fall after the Paella Feast catching many trout.  After fishing, I rested peacefully in the Mobile Command Unit while the others closed up the Old Tanner Inn.  GlenG and I spent a quiet Sunday morning sitting and talking on the Rossiter Lodge porch drinking freshly brewed coffee from our coveted  RBF mugs. The others were recovering from shuffleboard, Potter Co. babes and beer.  Sunday night was very peaceful.  Sleeps with Bison and I casually fished the First Fork  Many dumb trout were caught and released on the RBF Gum Wrapper.  Monday morning was quite different.  The fish would not cooperate, as their bellies were full.  I even tried spinning tackle.  The RBF Girl sure looked good in those cutoff jeans.  Sleeps with Bison and I vowed to keep this annual passage going so that Agrontrutta will have an opportunity to visit with us possibly in his retirement.  This event would never be possible without the outstanding men that attend this ungodly affair.  We all should be thankful that we have such humans in our lives.  As time goes on, I will add to this blog things that are noteworthy and things that are not.

Brown Drake Spinner Falls at the Big Woods Summit

The Brown Drake Spinner

The Brown Drake is a true ephemera.  You will only meet a Brown Drake Spinner Fall on two to three nights in early June.  We were lucky this year.  I have chased the Brown Drake Spinner on Big Pine Creek for many years in the 1980's.  I only got lucky three times including one time during mid-day before a mighty storm.  You see, Brown Drake duns hatch sporadically in the afternoon and evening.  The duns are of little importance as they get airborne almost immediately.  Fishing a #10 2XL nymph during the day and evening will catch trout as they are focused on this prolific food source.  That explains why Jonny Ranger netted 21 trout on Wednesday using a #10 Hare's Ear Nymph.  The large spinners will gather in the late evening over the water.  They may get as low as head high.  Then without any explanation, they will return to the trees and later fall in the wee hours of the night when you are asleep.  This year on the First Fork, they fell on three nights around 9 PM!  On two of the nights, they fell through an incredible caddis flight.  The number of bugs can not be explained.  Best estimate is 100 billion caddis per minute flying at break-neck speed up the creek.  This went on for nearly an hour.  Bowhunter thought that the Brown Drakes were emerging because he saw "duns" floating with upright wings.  They were in fact spinners, not quite yet spent.  The spinners have clear, well marked wings with very long tails.  They were spinners and the trout took as many as they could.

RBF Gum Wrapper

RBF's Gum Wrapper proved to be very effective.  The Brown Drake version is tied with two hanks of white poly yarn and 10-12 strands of Micro Silver Crystal Flash for wings and coc de leon fibers for tails.  Bowhunter and the Chief enjoyed great fishing Sunday night as the spinner fall was not as dense as previous nights, giving the trout a better chance of finding our flies.  Often times, the morning after a Brown Drake Spinner Fall can produce good fishing.

Nice wild brown taken during the morning hours with a RBF Gum Wrapper